Tag Archives: Tech

Reasons for Clojure

Posted on 2021-04-15 by jcs

Irreal regulars know that I’ve been exceedingly wishy-washy about learning Clojure. Every time I see a video from Zamansky or someone else using it, I get excited about learning and trying it out. Other times, I get hung up on … Continue reading →

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Industrial R&D Labs

Posted on 2021-03-18 by jcs

When you read “Industrial R&D Labs” in the title, what did you think of? Even in our field, there are plenty. There’s Xerox’s PARC, AT&T’s Bell Labs, and IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center to name just three of the … Continue reading →

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Google and the Petro Curse

Posted on 2021-03-11 by jcs

The Google graveyard of services is a familiar Internet trope that describes Google’s habit of sunsetting popular services. It’s infuriating. Seemingly everyone has a story of some app they depended on that Google killed. The smart money no longer adopts … Continue reading →

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The Most Vital Language

Posted on 2021-03-09 by jcs

Kontra has an interesting question: If aliens (which obviously would come from Mars aboard one of Musk’s spaceships) manage to completely disable one programming language to bring human civilization on earth to a screeching halt, which language would they choose? … Continue reading →

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Designing with Finite State Machines

Posted on 2021-02-22 by jcs

I’ve written before (see here and here for example) of my enthusiasm for using finite state machines (FSMs) in my design and coding. I had a C-based template that I used over and over. To implement a new state machine … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Word

Posted on 2021-02-19 by jcs

Microsoft Word: What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) typesetting software that is widely used for writing despite its lack of decent version control and text entry/editing functionality#vim #emacs #rmarkdown #pandoc — Martin Skarzynski (@marskar) February 18, 2021 And … Continue reading →

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Some Z Shell Tricks

Posted on 2021-02-18 by jcs

A lot of Linux people have been singing the praises of Zsh for a long time and even as a Mac user it was always an option but I never bothered. Part of that is that I mostly stay in … Continue reading →

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Paul Graham: What I Worked On

Posted on 2021-02-16 by jcs

By any reckoning, Paul Graham has had a pretty successful life. He’s recognized as an expert on Lisp and has written a couple of books on the subject. In addition to his accomplishments in computer science, he also trained as … Continue reading →

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Sleeping in Unfamiliar Places

Posted on 2021-02-15 by jcs

npr has an interesting article on some recent research about what happens when humans sleep in an unfamiliar place. It’s long been known that humans don’t sleep well in an unfamiliar place. The effect is so common it even has … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: The End of the Story

Posted on 2021-02-12 by jcs

The seemingly never-ending saga of SCO versus Linux may finally have come to an end. SCO’s Darl McBride who spearheaded the effort has declared bankruptsy. If you’re too young to remember those days, it’s hard to comprehend how much the … Continue reading →

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